6 Things T’s Editors Like Right Now

Oct. 13, 2017

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Products That Will Make You Want to Bathe for Hours

Fancy candles have become so ubiquitous, they sometimes feel like unthoughtful gifts. This holiday season, I will instead be giving a new collection of soaks and salts from the natural beauty store Follain. For the product line, the shop’s founder Tara Foley worked with four of her favorite brands: The Follain x Farmaesthetics Dream Bath Elixir, a cloudy tonic with blue yarrow and eucalyptus essential oils, fosters deep breathing, while the lactic acid in Follain x RICA’s milk bath of white clay and pink rose promises to soften the skin. Then there’s the detoxifying lavender bath salt (with salt sourced from Utah, Bolivia, the Himalayas and the Dead Sea), a collaboration with the Malibu brand OSEA, that hits the water with a satisfying fizz. Finally, after toweling off, try the rose body butter, a collaboration between Follain and Organic Bath Co. “People love to luxuriate in the ingredients and take a moment for themselves away from the noise,” says Foley, a “a huge bath person” who’s bound to make converts of us all. follain.com — KATE GUADAGNINO

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CreditBill Powers

An Art Show Downtown, for One Night Only

“I don’t want to rail against capitalism or anything,” begins the gallerist Bill Powers, “but the art world can get a bit corporate — and the more expensive it gets, the more corporate it gets. It’s nice to do something outside of the white box.” Like, say, inside the pastel-hued Café Henrie on the Lower East Side, where, last month, Powers introduced his “One Night Only” artist series, which put the work of Austin Eddy on display for the titular one night. The next installment is scheduled for Oct. 19 and will feature paintings by the club owner and D.J. Paul Sevigny. According to Powers, some of the pieces have a Pop Art-y, Sister Corita vibe and others are minimalist and muted, more in the tradition of Robert Motherwell.

The evening will effectively be Sevigny’s debut as a fine artist. “I always think — and this is going to sound completely insane — that there’s an element of public service to what I do,” explains Powers, who founded the Upper East Side Half Gallery. “Even though Paul is widely successful, this was a sort of secret wish of his, and I’m happy to be a part of that. Hopefully, we sell a couple of works and bring some different worlds together, but I don’t think this is the first step toward his MoMA retrospective,” he says, laughing. “And it doesn’t have to be.” Oct. 19, from 7 to 11 p.m. Café Henrie, 116 Forsyth Street, New York — HILARY MOSS

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A Kerry James Marshall Tote, for a Cause

Many times cooler than standard gift shop gear — the Van Gogh umbrella, the Monet scarf — are the custom artist totes that the New York brand MZ Wallace has made for its Gives Back program. In 2015, co-founders Monica Zwirner and Lucy Wallace Eustice printed a black and white text-based painting by Glenn Ligon onto their roomy quilted Metro Tote, with proceeds from the limited run going to the Studio Museum in Harlem’s art education programs. Another tote, featuring a Raymond Pettibon drawing that posits “Good prose is of no harm,” benefited the New York Public Library.

Now, the pair has teamed up with Kerry James Marshall. Zwirner got the idea while wandering through Marshall’s “Mastry” exhibition last year, which first opened at the MCA Chicago. Funds from the new collaboration will go to that museum’s education initiatives, which is fitting given the artist’s ties to the community (he lives and works in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood) and the fact that he first entered a museum on a sixth-grade field trip. Zwirner points out that the image on the bag — one of Marshall’s vibrant, untitled works of a painter with her palette — mirrors itself on either side of the tote, so that the pictures join at the seam in a way that references the artist’s newer Rorschach-style pieces. “It’s been a dream to work with him,” Zwirner says, “and we’re excited to start seeing them around the city. It becomes a bit of a wink, like ‘you and I are seeing eye to eye. We both decided to support something.’” www.mzwallace.com/kjm — K.G.

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CreditCourtesy of IBU

New Clothes, With Old Stories Behind Them

It looked like a midlife crisis when, in 2000, Susan Hull Walker quit being a minister to take up weaving. “I was overeducated from the neck up, and thought I wanted to make things with my hands,” she explains. But while doing a Masters in fiber arts at SCAD, she became more enamored of the people and narratives behind various textile traditions than in creating herself. "There were artisans around the world far better than I could ever be," she says, and so she set about traveling the globe to meet them. She quickly realized how easily these “textile languages” could go extinct, forcing the artisans — mostly women — to move away from their villages and their children, in order to take jobs in factories. Dismayed by how nonprofits were encouraging them to churn out touristic knickknacks — “they were only looking at how these women could make money, but not meaning," she decided to serve as a bridge between the makers and clients willing to pay for something of value that could be kept for a lifetime.

Walker’s brand, Ibu Movement, is different from other companies in which Western designers make clothing and accessories in the developing world. Because it is essential to her that the artisans be part of the creative process and utilize their particular talents and cultural references — not simply make things in Western neutrals — she has studied the individual skills of the more than 70 artisan groups and collectives she works with in 34 different countries. She then hires someone whose global style and sensibility she admires, like Ali McGraw, to design a collection, and acts as craft matchmaker, finding the right artisan for each idea. (She also follows along through execution, encouraging the designer to tweak or adapt their concept to make it more relevant to a crafter’s particular skills.) By creating high quality items, she is able to pay the workers "a more than fair-trade wage." “These women have huge skill sets that have never been valued,” she says. “In the same way that I get paid for what I know, I want them to be paid for what they know."

Walker’s latest collaboration with the well-traveled interior designer and author Charlotte Moss has more 50 pieces, from Moroccan indigo caftans to felted wool dresses from Kyrgyzstan to Peruvian jewelry carved from cow horn (who knew?). One of Moss’s little black dresses even employs an open needlework technique done by Afghani women, typically used to cover the eye opening in a burqa. A bridge indeed. The Charlotte Moss for Ibu Boutiqueis open at the Pierre Hotel, 2 East 61st Street through Sunday, Oct. 15th. ibumovement.com, — DEBORAH NEEDLEMAN

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CreditBon Jane

A Book That Will Remind You Why You Love New York

For her new book, “Worn in New York,” the writer and T contributor Emily Spivack asked 68 interesting individuals one question: “What piece of clothing reminds you of a significant moment or experience in New York City?” The result is a page-turning collection of short stories that range from funny and inspiring to nostalgic. It’s a beautiful window into how the city has shaped so many lives — and offers a glimpse into the things people wore during particularly poignant moments. There’s Aubrey Plaza’s old NBC page uniform (she only lasted in the program a few months before stealing the suit); the leather boots a North Carolina software executive was wearing as US Airways flight 1549 crash-landed on the Hudson River; and Elizabeth Taylor’s flashy Givenchy jumpsuit — pink and yellow and wine-stained, which Coco Rocha scored at a Christie’s Auction and wore to the Met Gala in 2012. In between are countless comical and bizarre little incidents that will leave you smiling to yourself and thinking, “Only in New York ...” $25, amazon.com — ALAINNA LEXIE BEDDIE

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CreditAlina Asmus

Simple Clothes to Stockpile for Vacation

We may be slipping into winter here on the East Coast but, just like that old expression about happy hour, it’s always pool weather somewhere. So it’s a welcome time to see one of our favorite swimwear brands, Her the Label, expanding into clothing for resort. Building on the brand’s minimal aesthetic, the new offering, titled Her the Line, consists of 10 simple things, including unfussy blouses, flowing dresses and loose trousers. Just enough to make us mark our calendars for vacation.www.her-line.com — ISABEL WILKINSON

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